For instance, take “Game of Thrones,” the medieval fantasy series that has become a big hit on HBO.

According to the show’s Wikipedia entry, which I had to consult because I’ve never seen the thing, critics have praised the show for “high production values, the well-realized world, compelling characters, and…the strength of the child actors.”

Apparently, there’s a fair amount of sexual content as well, which surely helps boost the ratings.

But for some reason, the producers of “Game of Thrones” also felt it necessary to include graphic violence, including scenes that show severed heads being carried around on stakes, a gratuitous call that has led to them having to apologize for using a model head of former President George W. Bush.

This wasn’t a political statement or even a conscious choice, one of the show’s writers has claimed: “We just had to use what heads we had around.”

Actually, no, you didn’t.

You chose to push the envelope well beyond any minimal standards of taste, and you made fools of yourselves as a result.

That was a choice better left unmade, like the decision of ABC News to book Rielle Hunter, the marriage-destroying adulteress who conceived a child with former human John Edwards, on no less than three of their talk shows later this month to tout her new tell-all book about her vile affair with Edwards.

Perhaps that will draw ratings for ABC; my guess is, revolted viewers will far outnumber those who care what Hunter has to say.

But again, sometimes the best bookings are the ones you don’t make.

Those are the moments when you show your class by saying – I’ll take a pass.

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